On the Bias…

Why Your Opinion Does Not Matter

Ever taken a drive along the coast and seen trees growing sideways where there is a constant prevailing wind?  In New Zealand there are entire groves of trees blown sideways like a bad comb-over.  Their trunks grow straight up like any normal tree, but their smaller branches are constantly influenced by prevailing winds.  So they grow along the path of least resistance and end up looking like they’re getting blown to hell in a hurricane.  It’s interesting to think something as innocuous as a stiff breeze could do something like that to a tree which we generally consider to be very strong.  The irony makes it beautiful (to this particular beholder anyway).  Talk about a product of your environment. 

People do it too, although it’s not as immediately evident.  By the time a kid grows to form their own beliefs and ideas, they become slanted or skewed.  Typically, we’re raised with our parents’ beliefs about important things like religion and politics to the most mundane like pizza toppings and toilet paper hanging configurations.  Sometimes kids change their minds when they reach a certain age and begin to go to school, and socialize with peers, and read…and they begin to think critically, forming their own ethos or adopting those they’ve learned outside their homes.  I guess this is why a lot of parents have trouble with their teens, but without any personal experience (thank you, Jeebus!), I can only guess. But whether they do or don’t begin to think for themselves, or if they become closed-minded later in life (set in their ways so to speak), there’s always that prevailing wind which helps mold their opinions.

We’re all built by our experiences throughout our lives.  Like atoms are the building blocks of the universe, a person’s perceptions are the building blocks of their personality.  Events happen which affect us in ways that leave an impression on our psyches.  There’s nothing wrong with it…it’s just part of who we are.  It would be concerning if you were never changed by significant or traumatic events in your life.  I think if one were never affected by significant events, he’d be considered psychopathic (to be confirmed later when I kidnap a psychologist and beat the truth out of him…perhaps with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch).

Whether your ideas and beliefs are influenced from childhood or by some significant event, if its an influence based on emotion, it’s a biased influence, and it can be much stronger than logic.  This is because emotions are always self-serving.  Sure, you can fear for someone else’s safety, or hope for someone else’s success, but the underlying result of your desire is aimed toward your own personal satisfaction.  Don’t you feel better when a friend or loved-one texts you late at night that they made it home safe?  If not, you have issues, dude.

Bias is not the same as “preference.”  Bias is an emotional influence on your preference.  We all have our preferences whether it’s about politics, or religion, or choice of sandwich condiment (go mayo!).  So what’s wrong with an emotional influence on preference?  Why not cheer for the same team my parents cheered for?  I love my kids…why can’t I cheer them on in whatever endeavor they choose to persue?  Cheering, supporting, honoring a team or party or anyone you have an emotional attachment with is great…even admirable.  If other folks share the same bias as you…great, you have a cheering section.  Start a wave or a tomahawk chant or a Farcebook group.  Now you’re “preaching to the choir” and you have many friends to laugh with…even when laughing at someone else (in which case, you’re no better than a gaggle of “mean girls”).

But do you want to argue your point of view with someone who leans the other way?  Get some facts and use some logic.  Otherwise, your opinion is completely biased and is worth exactly the same amount as a dog turd.  You are not convincing anyone with your biased opinion.  You can cuss and call them names and share biased memes and use derogatory language…it’s not changing anyone’s mind.

To start, you won’t influence any reasonable person with your own emotion.  Reasonable people need reasonable arguments which include facts and critical thinking.  Emotion is the opposite of reason and bias is typically (almost, but not always) based on emotion.  If an argument has no reason or logic involved whatsoever, then it’s not an argument, it’s an emotion…and it has no place in a rational argument.

One of my BigSteve-isms from way back was originally meant to be sarcastic: The truth is just a matter of opinion (however, it’s not so sarcastic lately considering our lack of faith in news media or in science).  If this statement is true (and it’s my opinion that it is), and if our opinions are based only on emotion/bias, then there is no truth, and we are doomed to be on the wrong side of reality.  Luckily, there are still plenty of folks basing their opinions on facts rather than emotion…but those numbers are declining. 

And, problem is, where do you get your facts?

There was a time when the news was nothing but fact.  But over the past twenty years or so, major news sources have become opinionated a little at a time.  It was subtle at first…I didn’t even notice.  It really got going in earnest when President Trump accused national news outlets of reporting “fake news.”  Then his press secretary (one of them) used the term “alternative facts.”  Then it seemed like they stopped hiding it and just became extensions of their favored political parties.  So now, if you’re liberal, go listen to CNN…if conservative, listen to Fox.  But not just them…an entire slew of biased media has come slithering out from the bowels of the internet.  Whackos from the left and the right cheered as they emerged from the muck.  And some of these “journalists” became popular among their believers and their organizations grew into large new sources with money and readership.  And it wasn’t because they were selling the truth…no one wants the truth now.  They’re telling their readers exactly what they want to hear…confirming what they want to believe.  So, they cheer and flash their outrage over every little action or word taken out of context, but today’s whackos were yesterday’s normal everyday Americans just trying to get through life putting a kid or two through school.  Maybe they even use their kids to justify their outrage over something or other some talking head said in an interview on CNN or Newsmax.  “Think of the children!!!”

From this point on, I’ll refer to it as “NEWS”…capitalized and in quotation marks.

There are a lot of “NEWS” sources lately which are obviously more opinion than facts.  If you are unconcerned with the difference between opinion and fact, you have no business commenting about truth.  Acknowledge your bias or stay off the internet, please.

When folks constantly expose themselves to the same point of view and no other, they’re only reinforcing their bias.  Sure, if I listen to Fox News every day, or CNN, or any other obviously slanted “NEWS,” and I don’t listen to any other opinion, I’m going to have a slanted point of view as well.   I call it “intentional ignorance.”  And if ignorance is bliss, can you blame them?  Yes…yes, we can.

Why won’t you listen to the other side?  Are you afraid the body snatchers will cocoon you and three days later a liberal will emerge wearing your face?  Or maybe you’ll decide to trash your progressive beliefs, buy an arsenal and a cache of ammunition, murder a slew of people in a movie theater, and then must hide out from the FBI in the Badlands of South Dakota?  An alternate opinion is never going to hurt you.  If anything, understanding the other side will make you better prepared to argue your point of view.  But of course this would require some “understanding”…a commodity rarer than any precious metal.

I’ll watch some of both sides.  Some CNN for a while then over to Fox.  I admit, I’m biased to the conservative side so sometimes I need a little more CNN than Fox to bring my needle closer to the middle.  But the dumb memes I find on my social media feed tend to push me left anyway.  “Let’s go, Brandon” is just about to push me over the edge.

I’d rather lean into the wind to compensate for my bias. This is why I play devil’s advocate in my head so often.  I figure the truth is always left or right of center, but it’s generally closer to the middle than out on the fringes.  Maybe I’m just as biased as the rest of you but biased toward moderation.  I just find it irksome seeing all these posts without any regard for facts, logic, or even the slightest bit of empathy.  I’d rather my tree grow straight and tall.  And I’ll watch the rest of you grow sideways and stunted.

-Big Steve